Tuesday Workout of the Week: The best workout is the one you’re actually going to do.

It’s one hundred percent true. No, make that a thousand percent true. Or some such thing. The best workout is the one you are actually going to do. Doesn’t matter if today’s a “cardio day” or a “strength day” or a “yoga day” or a “walk day”…What matters is that you move, and in a way that fits where you are right now.

Movement is what matters. The specifics are up to you.

When it comes to exercise, movement – any kind of movement – is what matters. Do the workout you’re actually going to do. (Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Yesterday, after eight days without a strenuous aerobic workout (for which I used my bad cold as an excuse for a few days), I got back in the saddle, literally. Bike ride at the gym. One hour. No care in the world about the resistance level or the RPM’s. Just a Zen Ride. Do whatever you can, for as long as you can do it. My body’s not at full strength right now, and – gulp – there’s a half-marathon coming up in a few days, so I’m going to have to just get out there and see what I can do when the time comes. It will be okay.

The Workout of the Week today is simple: Do the workout that you’re actually going to do. Simple. Direct. Focused. No excuses. If you can’t move for an hour, move for half an hour. If you can’t move for half an hour, move for 15 minutes. Just move. It’s good stuff.

September Stats: More visitors to Every48 than ever! But fewer workouts than I wanted. Hmmm.

The September readership stats were awesome. In both unique visitors and page views, this was the single best month of 2014, even counting April 2014, when lots of Boston Marathon-based traffic showed up for a quick visit and then went away. There were 581 visitors, and 1061 page views. (In April, the second-most popular month, there were 418 visitors and 1046 page views.)

Moral of the story: newsletter power! September marked the launch of the Wellness Playbook Weekly, an email full of inspiration and favorite Every48 posts for people who have seen me speak or signed up at the Wellness Playbook website. Great to see all the new interest in the blog. Please keep spreading the word to help grow the audience for this blog – it’s a major-league labor of love right now, but there are plans in the works for it to become much, much more.

And, about those workouts. Hmmmm.

I exercised almost exclusively outdoors in September – much more running, finally, than I’d been able to get in during the summer when my lazy quadriceps were acting up, and a few yoga classes, too (yay!). But I went to the gym exactly once. It was a warm and sunny September, very unusual for Seattle, and something in me said: “Enjoy it!” So I left the gym for the rainier and colder days to come.

Overall, there were 8 running workouts this month – an average of two per week, which is less than perfect for training for a half-marathon. There was one bike workout at the gym. And in a magical six-day period (which also coincided with my first cough/cold of 2014), I got myself to three yoga classes and just gently let my body do whatever it could do in the bendy/stretchy division.

What didn’t work in September: Weekend workouts went by the wayside (say that five times fast). I have to figure out how to prioritize my running earlier in the day on at least one weekend day. For a while I had a “pack the gym bag and put it in the car” habit for Saturdays – maybe it’s time to get that habit back.

Overall: 12 workouts in 30 days, of which 9 were of the “sweaty one hour or so” variety. Not enough. First month of 2014 when I started to feel like exercise was falling by the wayside. Change of seasons? Fear of success? (There were some nice professional milestones in September and I’m actually quite curious to think through whether that somehow played games with my head. I’m also heading into marathon season and I’ve come oh-so-close to my dream running performance in the past…but to bust through that barrier I’ll have to really commit to my workouts for the last two and a half months of 2014. So there are multiple head things that might be going on right now.)

I’ll ruminate on all of this in the coming posts. While making sure to get back to my promise to myself to exercise hard at least once every 48 hours for the rest of 2014.

What will you do for the rest of 2014? Think about it, write it down, and then, get out there and get your workout on.

Yesterday’s #Every48 workout: A really nice, no-pressure 60-minute BIKE ride at the gym while catching up on my favorite podcasts.